A History of BPC: Lessons from Our Past Informing Our Future Directions

While there were previous efforts to increase the number of women and students of color graduating with a computer science (CS) degree, the establishment of the National Science Foundation's Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) program in 2005 created an upsurge in this area of research. This program encouraged the creation and growth of many alliances that are still well-established today. While the CS field continues to grow drastically, with an increase of 300% in students earning a bachelor's in computer science since 2006, there is still much work to be done toward BPC efforts. When looking at intersectional groups such as Hispanic women and Black women, there is no significant change and a consistent decline in earned bachelor's computing degrees, respectively, within the last 20 years. Much of BPC research has become identity-focused, however, there is a dearth of research on intersectional identity groups. This paper presents a historic overview of BPC initiatives, research, and an overview of the seminal work being conducted about intersectional identity in computing. Also discussed are challenges specific to BPC research, opportunities to advance computing education research, and future avenues for advocacy of equitable computing education and BPC work.